


Five different moments in the life of Duke and Nate, and one that happens without them.

by CookieDoughMe



Series: Nate Hansen AU [6]
Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, M/M, and some violence, and talk of a 'gruesome' murder - but that's as graphic as that gets, five separate little moments, nate hansen au, there is a fist fight, there is a little smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 08:01:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11459409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookieDoughMe/pseuds/CookieDoughMe
Summary: Five little every-day moments as Duke and Nate life their life, travel the world and have fun together.And one conversation about them that happens back in the Haven they left behind.





	Five different moments in the life of Duke and Nate, and one that happens without them.

**ONE**

Duke loved this boat, he really did. He loved everything about it, but it did have the occasional down side and some of the tasks to maintain it were messy. And so, they had both spent all afternoon in the engine room, running through jobs that were hot work at the best of times, let alone today when they were somewhere off the coast of Africa and it was hot whatever you were doing.

He was glad to get out of there and into a long cooling shower, to feel the refreshing water wash the grime from his skin and to smell something besides oil and sweat. He washed his hair twice and he stood in the water for a long time, until every last trace of dust and sweat and oil was gone.

Eventually, he left the bathroom and strolled into the bedroom drying his hair. He heard Nate walking up the corridor towards him. “Shower’s free,” he called out as he reached out to open a drawer for some underwear. Nate’s only response was to walk straight up to him, firmly push the drawer closed and step forward to press Duke firm against it. He wrapped his arms tight around Duke’s not-quite-dry skin, and pulled him close into a kiss.

“What is it with you when I’m fresh out of the shower?” Duke asked when he got the chance to speak.

Nate shrugged, “I like you naked.”

“Hmmm,” said Duke, not convinced that was the whole story. Nate, fresh from the engine room, was still covered in the dust and sweat and oil that Duke had so thoroughly washed away. He had a smear of oil on his cheek, dust in his hair and sweat running freely down his back. “And clean?” Duke suggested. “When you’re neither?”

Nate ran his hands down Duke’s back as he thought about it, “Yeah maybe,” he admitted.

Duke grinned. “Wanna get me dirty again?”

Nate smiled his tight little smile and pushed Duke backwards onto the bed, following the movement to position himself on top. Duke felt the sheets underneath him and the hot, solid, and insistent presence of Nate on top of him, pinning him to the bed.

Duke rolled his hips and his shoulders, appreciating the sensation of a far more pleasant kind of heat and pressure than the stuffy confines of an engine room. They could work out the details of Nate’s thought process another time; for now he was just going to enjoy it.

 

**TWO**

“OK but will you ... Just sit still. Dude - you need to … Stop that!”

Duke flopped back on the sofa, frustrated, and scowled at the ankle that had betrayed him by allowing itself to get sprained.

“I know it's frustrating, but you need to rest it if you're going to be better in time for…”

“Yeah.”

“I can do everything for now, but I'll need you....”

“Yeah I know. OK, I get it. I'll rest some more.”

“OK,” said Nate. “Thanks. So can I get a fresh compress for it? Without risking getting kicked across the room?”

Duke nodded, “Yeah. Thanks,” he added.

Nate went to the freezer and took out the damp towel he'd put there earlier. With a dry one again the skin to limit the cold a little, he wrapped it tight around Duke’s swollen ankle, watching him carefully in case of any more frustrated outbursts. He knew what it was like, and Duke had taken care of him plenty of times in the past. The worst thing was not being able to do anything productive.

“There must be plenty of stuff needs doing around here that doesn't require moving about. I need to go unload the rest of the current cargo then I can get you set up with some jobs alright? Can't have you slacking off,” he added, joking.

That drew a smile out of Duke at last and he nodded in agreement.

Nate walked past a bookshelf on his way out, and something caught his eye. “Or hey, didn't you want to read this new Stephen King? Now's your chance,” he added as he threw it across to Duke. A small book, it landed on the table in front of him, the title face up; _The Colorado Kid._

“Thanks,” said Duke as he reached for it.

Nate brushed off the thanks as he made his way outside, adding as an afterthought, “Just don't tell me how it ends.”

  
**THREE**

It was somewhere near noon and somewhere near the equator, but neither of those facts were particularly relevant to the two men in the bedroom of the Cape Rouge just at the moment. They lay facing each other, naked on a naked bed, warm enough in the tropical air that bed clothes were a barely-remembered concept.

Still half asleep, they reached for each other automatically; drowsy, relaxed, and utterly at home in each other's company.

Fingers danced over ribs, muscled and tanned from time spent working and playing in the sun. A palm pressed against the skin over a heart, feeling the steady thumb-thumb of it's owner relaxed. A hand moved to a neck, fingers brushing the soft hair at the back, while a thumb ran across stubble to graze an earlobe. Another set of fingers ran through longer hair, playing with twisting the strands around and around, just the way they had done many times before.

Eyes barely open, lips met without a word, skin gently touching skin, slowly, softly finding each other and opening to savour the familiar taste of each other too, tongues pushing gently past each other, feeling, tasting, caressing.

A hand reached out to pull their hips closer together. They were close enough in height that their feet found each other too, toes playing over toes as legs pushed between each other. Their pale skin was tanned to almost the same shade and their dark hair matched nearly as closely; their bodies were a kind of mirror image of each other except for the differing collections of tattoos.

For all the tattoos they both had, there was only one matching pair; on their hips. A realistic-looking blue wave, the crests breaking into patterns of white foam which, while matched, were not identical. They were perhaps two images of the same wave, a few seconds apart. It was like the ocean flowed across their skin, from one to the other, linking them together forever.

A hand ran around a waist, and another rested on the other's hip, erections pressed tight against each other. An intermittent moan of pleasure from one, merged into a similar sound from the other; almost a purr, lazy, unhurried and relaxed.

Outside the open porthole, the waves lapped against the side of the Rouge, as the sun glinted and danced over water that stretched unbroken for miles.

 

**FOUR**

Outside, it was dark, and cold, and wet. The wind whipped up the sea and dashed the water against the side of the boat, as sleet pelted down into waves that never stopped moving. The Rouge was moored at the edge of a small harbour, but the day's work was done and the locals had all gone home to their families. There was no sound, except for the wind and the rain and the waves.

Inside it was warm and filled with the sounds of cheering (and punches, and kicks, and bodies slamming into each other) as the occupants of the room forgot about the weather outside to concentrate on watching the MMA fight they had been waiting for all week.

They ate and talked as they watched, their comments merging with the commentary on screen.

“No, you idiot, don't… ah.”

“Too late.”

“How could he not see that coming?”

Nate shrugged for a reply. Sometimes people missed things, his shrug seemed to say. Duke huffed back. He had been very adamant earlier about the likely outcome of the fight, but now he was starting to regret how sure he had sounded because it looked like he was going to be proved wrong.

The coverage cut to the commercials and Nate took a sip of beer, before regarding the plate in front of him. He took another mouthful, concentrating as he ate. “Did you do something to Gloria’s recipe?” he asked.

“Kinda,” replied Duke, looking a little guilty.

“It's good,” he replied, which only served to make Duke look more guilty still. “Don't worry,” Nate added, “I won't tell her.”

“Probably best all round if you don’t. I don’t think she’d appreciate it and I’d rather fight both of them at once than get a telling off from Gloria.”

Nate nodded in agreement and took another mouthful. “You could take them,” he said (not entirely convincingly) nodding at the screen. “But I won’t say anything. As long as you keep making it.”

 

**FIVE**

Nate swore loudly when the wrench slipped from his fingers and fell to the floor with a clatter. He turned to rummage through the tool box and swore again when he didn't find anything more appropriate to the job in hand. He made a mental note that simply read; _buy more fucking tools_.

They were supposed to have been in the next State yesterday and another issue with the engine was not helping their schedule. He made his way towards the other end of the ship, to where Duke was working on the problem that had got them stuck here in the first place.

He heard footsteps as he walked, thinking, _What's he doing in the galley?_

“Hey, dufus,” he called out with a smile in his voice, “You're supposed to be …” and then he abruptly fell silent, frowning as he realised from the rhythm of the footsteps that it was not Duke he could hear at all.

No one else was supposed to be on board. Who was strolling around like they owned the place?

He increased his speed, making his footsteps as quiet as possible and wishing he still had that wrench in his hand. He slipped quietly through the door to the galley and peered around the corner to look down the short corridor into the room. His stealth didn’t really help any though, as it simply meant that someone trying to leave in a hurry didn't realise he was there, and collided with him at speed before he had a chance to see them coming.

There was a moment where the momentum pushed them apart and left them staring at each other, stunned. Then Nate realised three things in quick succession: one, he had never seen the guy before; two, he looked decidedly spooked, like he had very much not expected to be discovered; and three, he was holding the contents of their safe. Papers and notebooks were clutched tight to his chest by hands that held their box of phones, passports and credit cards under various names.

Nate brought the heel of his hand up quick and hard to meet the guy's nose, but he was quick too and he turned out of the way just in time. Nate’s hand hit his cheek instead and it didn't have the impact he'd hoped. The intruder tried to move towards the door, but Nate grabbed his arm hard, making use of the advantage of being the only one with his hands free to pull him further back into the corridor.

Which stopped him getting away, but also meant there wasn’t much room to move; not enough room to kick the guy anyway, which is what Nate wanted to do. He brought a fist to his side instead, knuckles colliding hard with the soft flesh just under the intruder’s ribs.

That slowed him down a little, but still he tried for a headbutt, shifting his weight forward along with his head. And it would have been a powerful blow too, except given that he was not as tall as Nate it was never going to work well. Nate saw it coming anyway and shifted to the side out of the way. He reached his hand to the back of the guy's head to increase the forward momentum, slamming his face into the bulkhead with a satisfying crunch that left a dramatic looking splash of blood against the metal.

He swore through his bloody nose and stumbled on his feet, but he still had their papers clutched to his chest and Nate couldn't help but be a bit impressed by his determination. Nate punched him in the ribs again and then got behind him to push him hard against the wall, bracing his legs against the one opposite in the small space, to hold him trapped against the bulkhead, his arms (still holding their things) squashed between his chest and the unforgiving metal.

So now Nate had him contained, but in a way that meant he couldn't move himself either. He pushed even harder for a moment, pressing the breath out of the guy, then relaxed just enough to turn his head towards the door and yelled, “CROCKER!!”

As he waited for Duke to come help out, he turned his head back the other way to very carefully and deliberately say to the stranger, “Now. Who the hell are you and what exactly do you think you're doing with our stuff?”

 

**AND ONE**

Garland looked up as Gloria walked into his office and he waved her to the seat in front of his desk as he spoke. “Thanks for stopping by. Just wanted to check with you on the Friedrickson case from ‘83 if you remember it.”

She took a seat and shuddered at the name. “God how could I forget. Why?”

“We might have another. Either he's back, or it's a copycat, or I dunno. I got your notes here from the original autopsy, I just wanted to check if there was anything, you know that … didn't go in the official report.”

Gloria picked the faded report up and flicked through it, but she wasn't really reading; she didn't need to. For all that had happened in the mid-80s, it was still one of the more memorable cases she'd ever dealt with. “There wasn't any sign of any Trouble at work in how he died. Just your average gruesome murder,” she concluded putting the report back down. “Can I see the new autopsy report?”

“Knock yourself out,” Garland replied, tossing her the file. He waited while she read through it, noting each nod of recognition with a sinking heart.

“It’s the same MO,” she said at last. “Precisely enough that if it's a copycat, it's a very well informed one.”

Garland nodded; that was what he'd been afraid of. “Shit,” he said with feeling.

“I'd hoped we wouldn't see the likes of that again,” said Gloria and they were both silent for a moment as their memories took them back to a nasty murder case that had never been properly solved.

“1983,” she said. “20 years gone by, not that it feels like it.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“To be honest that case is not the only thing from 1983 I’d like to hope wouldn’t make a comeback, but if the pattern holds then we've only got a few years until …”

“Don't say it, Jesus woman.”

Gloria scowled at him, but decided to let that go on the basis that he'd just had some bad news and had some hard and stressful work ahead of him. In fact, now that she thought about it, he looked even more frazzled than she might have expected.

“OK, but …”

“I don't want to hear it.”

“And I'm not in the business of not-telling people things they need to hear just because they don't want to hear them. If the Troubles come back it's not just unlikely deaths and impossible reports you'll have to deal with is It? Lucy will likely come back too, are you ready for that? Because if it happens this town will need you and I don't know how to stop you falling apart. I don't want to have to start looking out for sudden impossible cracks in the ground on my way to work.”

“If the Troubles come, then they come and we'll deal with them then. And if Lucy comes too then she'll be here to help. That'll be a good thing, no matter how tough I find it to hear her introduce herself to me with a different name.”

Gloria nodded, mollified somewhat - at least he'd thought about what it would be like, which was something. At least he would be some way to prepared. Maybe he didn't need to dwell on it right now.

To change the subject (sort of) she said, “Lucy might not be the only one who returns with the Troubles you know. Duke and Nate asked me to let them know if the “spooky stuff” started up again. I never did get the full details out of them as to why, but the implication was they'd come home. They could be useful, you know. Cleaning up messes, getting stuff done that there didn't ought to be a way to get done. Very resourceful those boys and learning more all the time by the sounds of it.”

That got his attention, “You're still in touch with them?” he asked, surprised.

“Course I'm still in touch with them! They're somewhere between Japan and India right now.”

“Guess I’d assumed they'd be somewhere between jail and a grave by now.”

“Well you assumed wrong. And if the Troubles start up again and they come back, I don't want you scaring them out of town over some puffed up charge you don't even care about. If they decide to come back it'll be to help out, and Haven could do a lot worse than to have them on its side, let me tell you.”

Garland held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Alright, alright,” he said. “IF the Troubles start up again and IF Crocker and Hansen come back and IF I'm still around to see it, then I will not say a word about all the outstanding warrants on our system with their names against them.”

Gloria nodded and was about to thank him, but Garland wasn’t done and he carried on, “BUT if all of those things come to pass, you gotta do something too - you gotta come back as ME, cos I'm not sure I’ll have the energy to train up a new one in how to cope with the Troubles and the impossibilities of putting anything in a report.”

Gloria watched the slight shake in his hands at the word ‘Troubles’. “Deal,” she said.

**Author's Note:**

> THREE  
> For their matching wave tattoos I’m thinking something like this <http://tattoo-journal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wave-tattoo6-650x650.jpg> (found here http://tattoo-journal.com/best-wave-tattoo-designs-meaning/), to symbolise the sea that’s taken them around the world together :)
> 
> FOUR  
> MMA reference inspired by Eric Balfour: [www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmSrgcGWDB0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmSrgcGWDB0)


End file.
